Macaroni & Cheese

Brown Sugar Kitchen

Macaroni and cheese comes in many different styles. Roux based or no? Stove top or baked? Topping or none? Breadcrumbs or just more cheese, browned and crunchy? One cheese, or several? What you like often depends on what you grew up eating.

This recipe is made with a roux, then baked with a breadcrumb topping. It uses only sharp cheddar, but you could use whatever you like as long as you keep the amount of cheese about the same. It turns out creamy and delicious, and reheats well. I would cut down on the amount of bread crumbs, unless you REALLY like them.

I grew up with boxed mac and cheese only; Velveeta was my favorite, but my tastes have definitely matured since then!

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with Heather today we're going to be
[00:09]: working once again from Tanya Holland's
[00:11]: Brown Sugar Kitchen cookbook and we're
[00:13]: going to be making her macaroni and
[00:15]: cheese this is a baked macaroni and
[00:18]: cheese with a bread crumb topping so
[00:23]: if you haven't had one of those it might
[00:25]: be a little bit different but it is a
[00:27]: little bit different than the one that
[00:30]: we made
[00:31]: that's my favorite which is the Ashley
[00:35]: christensen's pools Diner
[00:39]: uh macaroni ogre attack
[00:43]: but they're both baked that one does not
[00:48]: start with the roux where this one does
[00:51]: and
[00:53]: that one does not have a
[00:56]: breadcrumb topping it has just
[00:59]: uh browned cheese on top so
[01:03]: we are starting with a roux-based creamy
[01:06]: sauce
[01:07]: so I am melting some unsalted butter in
[01:11]: my pan here I've chosen
[01:14]: my Saucier because we're going to be
[01:16]: using a whisk and
[01:18]: it's much easier to get into there are
[01:20]: no little Corners to for the Whisk to
[01:22]: for the flour and sauce to get sort of
[01:25]: stuck in so the Whisk gets everything
[01:27]: out of that in the Saucier I've got
[01:32]: my oven heated to 350 degrees
[01:36]: because we are going to bake it and
[01:40]: I've already boiled my macaroni just in
[01:44]: salted water she says 10 to 12 minutes I
[01:48]: boiled mine for 11 minutes until it's
[01:50]: tender so
[01:52]: uh
[01:53]: the for the macaroni I buy it tends to
[01:56]: be
[01:57]: about
[01:59]: 11 minutes so
[02:02]: I think that's how long
[02:04]: it is for the pools Diner mac and cheese
[02:06]: I forget but the timing is pretty good
[02:11]: so my butter is melted
[02:14]: and I'm going to stir in
[02:17]: my flour which I've already measured
[02:22]: my some salt some kosher salt which is
[02:26]: the only salt in this recipe
[02:30]: and some Worcestershire sauce
[02:34]: which is
[02:36]: different
[02:40]: I did not pre-measure
[02:43]: that should be plenty of that
[02:48]: um and I'm going to get this stir
[02:50]: starting to be stirred up
[02:55]: there we go and we're adding uh some
[03:00]: chopped minced garlic and
[03:04]: some grated Ginger fresh ginger this is
[03:08]: this is interesting the ginger is
[03:10]: certainly a different ingredient garlic
[03:13]: is not but I haven't
[03:15]: ever seen fresh ginger in a mac and
[03:18]: cheese recipe but this one has it
[03:23]: so now we're just going to cook this for
[03:26]: about a minute we don't want it to Brown
[03:28]: we just want to sort of cook the flour
[03:31]: with the butter
[03:36]: to cook out some of the flour taste
[03:38]: before we add our creamy ingredients
[03:42]: it smells mostly like Worcestershire
[03:44]: sauce and garlic another thing I've
[03:46]: already pre-prepared is I have a
[03:49]: casserole dish two liters she said
[03:51]: mine's a little bit bigger than two
[03:53]: liters
[03:54]: better to go a little bigger than a
[03:56]: little smaller
[03:57]: um and I've buttered it so a little bit
[04:01]: of the unsalted butter there we go
[04:04]: that's about a minute and so now I'm
[04:06]: going to stir in I'm going to start with
[04:09]: uh
[04:11]: some heavy cream
[04:13]: I'm gonna gradually pour this in and
[04:17]: I am going to end up whisking this but
[04:19]: I'm going to start with my
[04:21]: with my spatula
[04:26]: heavy cream
[04:29]: and then
[04:35]: I'm going to add
[04:37]: my whole milk
[04:42]: so we've got
[04:45]: a creamy sauce going here and I'm going
[04:47]: to switch to my whisk because we are
[04:51]: supposed to whisk this pretty constantly
[04:54]: uh
[04:56]: for
[04:59]: about 10 minutes until the sauce has
[05:03]: thickened so
[05:05]: I'm going to be here for about 10
[05:07]: minutes
[05:08]: and whisking and making sure that it
[05:11]: doesn't get lumpy shouldn't at this
[05:13]: point or and it doesn't get sticked to
[05:16]: the bottom and
[05:19]: I'll be back in about 10 minutes when
[05:22]: it's all done and I'll show you what it
[05:24]: looks like
[05:25]: you might see this one fast forward
[05:27]: we'll see
[05:39]: this is about
[05:42]: four minutes shy of 10 minutes and it
[05:46]: certainly has thickened up
[05:48]: um
[05:50]: and she says to so it thickens slightly
[05:54]: and I would say that is more than
[05:56]: slightly thicken
[05:59]: so I'm debating about whether to stop it
[06:02]: now
[06:03]: um I think I'm gonna give it another
[06:07]: minute maybe all right so we're about
[06:11]: one to two minute shy 10 minutes and I'm
[06:13]: going to go ahead and turn off the heat
[06:16]: and switch
[06:19]: and pull it off the heat and so it's
[06:23]: pretty thick you can kind of see that
[06:24]: there
[06:26]: and we're going to stir in our cheese so
[06:29]: this is sharp cheddar cheese I happen to
[06:32]: be using white because that is what I
[06:35]: have
[06:37]: um I think probably usual would be
[06:39]: yellow but you know it's gonna be fine
[06:45]: and we're supposed to stir this in until
[06:47]: it is melted and that's a lot of cheese
[06:49]: for that sauce but that's okay
[06:58]: it's taken a while for all of this
[06:60]: cheese to melt you can do it a little
[07:02]: bit by you know just a little by little
[07:05]: but
[07:09]: um while we are stirring this I'm going
[07:11]: to go ahead and add the last two
[07:14]: ingredients for the sauce which is a
[07:17]: little bit of she says Tabasco I have
[07:19]: Frank's
[07:21]: because that's what I keep what I like
[07:25]: what I have at the time at the moment
[07:28]: and
[07:34]: some white pepper so a lot of times
[07:37]: people use white pepper with cream
[07:38]: sauces just so there's not a little
[07:41]: black flecks
[07:43]: it's just a pinch so
[07:46]: I literally pinched it
[07:48]: all right let me put it over my warm
[07:50]: burner just to see if that will get the
[07:53]: last
[07:54]: of the cheese melty
[07:57]: I feel like it's not entirely melted
[08:01]: but I also don't think it's going to get
[08:03]: any more melted currently with the
[08:06]: amount of heat in here
[08:08]: so it's been a while and I've been
[08:10]: stirring
[08:12]: the whole time so
[08:17]: it'll be fine it'll be fun I think I'm
[08:20]: gonna call that good
[08:21]: so you can see there's still little bits
[08:23]: of cheese not quite melted but we're
[08:26]: gonna bake it so it'll be fine and now
[08:30]: we're going to put in
[08:33]: our cooked macaroni
[08:36]: and
[08:41]: mix that in
[08:45]: get it fully coated with the cheesy
[08:48]: sauce
[08:54]: there we go I'm going to transfer it to
[08:59]: our butter dish
[09:00]: once it is all
[09:03]: coated which it is
[09:06]: get this transferred to the butter dish
[09:09]: and spread out
[09:14]: appropriately
[09:15]: and now
[09:18]: we're going to be making our
[09:20]: bread crumb topping
[09:23]: again over medium heat so we've got let
[09:26]: me get a special
[09:34]: so I'm going to
[09:37]: put
[09:41]: the rest of the unsalted butter
[09:44]: in my frying pan
[09:48]: and while that's melting I'm going to
[09:49]: clean up a little bit butter is all
[09:52]: melted now we're going to add fresh
[09:55]: bread crumbs um
[09:58]: I keep the heels of my bread in the
[10:03]: freezer and then when I get a bunch and
[10:05]: I don't have any more room I dry them
[10:08]: out in the oven and
[10:11]: um
[10:12]: pulverize them in the food processor and
[10:16]: there we go bread crumbs so
[10:19]: from something I would otherwise waste
[10:23]: and all we're doing is getting this
[10:26]: these sort of
[10:28]: coated in the butter we're not trying to
[10:31]: toast these here at all
[10:35]: just to coat them in the butter so once
[10:37]: it's all done
[10:38]: all we have to do is
[10:42]: spread it on top
[10:44]: sprinkle it on top try to get it
[10:47]: um
[10:52]: evenly coated
[10:57]: it'll be a lot of bread crumbs
[10:60]: actually
[11:01]: there's so many bread crumbs I'm just
[11:03]: going to dump it on and
[11:05]: spread it across
[11:09]: because there's a ton of breadcrumbs for
[11:11]: this now maybe I should have used a
[11:16]: wider thinner
[11:18]: dish
[11:21]: it holds it so
[11:24]: that is it for out here and all we have
[11:27]: to do is bake this so I've got my oven
[11:29]: like I said at 350 and I'm going to put
[11:33]: it in the oven
[11:35]: until the sauce is bubbly
[11:37]: and Crumbs are browned she says about 25
[11:40]: minutes so I'm gonna put this in the
[11:43]: oven and we'll see you in about 25
[11:45]: minutes and I'll show you what it looks
[11:47]: like foreign
[11:52]: [Music]
[11:55]: on this episode of cooking the books
[11:57]: with Heather you watched me make
[11:58]: macaroni and cheese from
[12:01]: Tanya Holland's Brown Sugar Kitchen
[12:04]: and this was a baked macaroni and cheese
[12:06]: with a breadcrumb topping
[12:10]: I think
[12:13]: the recipe was really good we enjoyed
[12:15]: the macaroni and cheese uh it was creamy
[12:19]: it was a little bit thick if I did one
[12:23]: thing differently I would cut down on
[12:25]: the number the amount of breadcrumb
[12:27]: topping it was just way too much
[12:30]: now I might have used the wrong kind of
[12:33]: breadcrumbs so she says fresh bread
[12:35]: crumbs which
[12:36]: some people say what I did is fresh
[12:38]: bread crumbs I don't know whatever
[12:42]: um
[12:43]: some people say it's more like fresh
[12:45]: bread just from like in small pieces so
[12:50]: that might have been the problem
[12:52]: I don't know I wouldn't use as much of
[12:56]: that topping next time
[12:58]: and I probably would have
[13:00]: taken the sauce off a little bit earlier
[13:04]: I think
[13:05]: she says about 10 minutes I think mine
[13:08]: was done
[13:09]: probably about eight minutes it got a
[13:12]: little bit thick it was still fine it
[13:14]: was still sauce
[13:15]: um
[13:17]: it would have been fine at that point
[13:18]: once you mix everything in as a uh as a
[13:23]: non-baked mac and cheese you could
[13:25]: certainly eat it like that uh I think I
[13:28]: prefer
[13:29]: a browned cheese topping so I might do
[13:33]: that instead of bread crumbs but that's
[13:35]: just up to personal preference
[13:37]: um
[13:38]: but it did reheat very well which is one
[13:42]: of the good things about using a
[13:44]: roux-based sauce like this instead of
[13:49]: the just cream based sauce that uh the
[13:54]: pool Steiner mac and cheese is which is
[13:57]: still my favorite have to say but this
[13:59]: was really good
[14:01]: I would certainly make it again I would
[14:02]: change it slightly next time but other
[14:05]: than that it was great whole family
[14:06]: loved it
[14:08]: um and we had enough for
[14:11]: two dinners basically the second one was
[14:14]: a little lighter than the first one and
[14:16]: she says it serves six so we got eight
[14:19]: servings out of it kind of small on the
[14:22]: second one but
[14:23]: still
[14:25]: um
[14:26]: yeah so we enjoyed it if you try it let
[14:30]: us know in the comments down below if
[14:32]: you enjoyed it and give me a thumbs up
[14:35]: hit the Subscribe button to come back
[14:38]: and watch me make something else next
[14:39]: week
[14:40]: thank you foreign